Legaltreble

They want total control over you. Not just trans people. Not just queer people. You. Everyone.

Trans people are just a scapegoat. They want total control over everyone's self expression. They want the right to mold you into their perfect little cog in their dehumanizing machine.

The new magic stops working after three days and every spell uses proprietary runes.

So yew trees are weird. They are extremely long lived with basically no known upper limit to their age. They do this by simply being extremely good at not dying like other trees do.

When a normal tree gets to an old age what usually happens is a fungus gets into their heartwood and takes hold. Their internal, dead wood rots away and they hollow out, lose structural support and collapse. Depending on the species this process can take decades or a good few centuries or so.

While yew trees do hollow out in this way they simply keep going afterwards. A ring shaped yew tree with most of its trunk missing is actually just middle aged and the most ancient yews get even weirder than that.

Wikipedia has this image of a Scottish yew where the start of this hollowing process can be seen. To be clear - for most tree species this would already have been fatal.

The thing is seeing a very old yew in this condition looks wrong to a tree surgeon, it's like the tree is constantly on the verge of death. So, if it's a well loved tree you try and do what you can to stop it from falling apart entirely.

A hundred years ago people tried all sorts of things like chaining up branches and also, yes, plugging the hollowed trunk with concrete. We know better nowadays.

Funnily enough there are even yews that survived this treatment and are still alive today.

This is a picture of the Tisbury yew in 1998 from the Ancient Yew Group, barely a minute ago from the tree's perspective.

Yews are fascinating plants with roots in European culture as ancient as the trees themselves. A few individual specimen trees are even estimated to be around five thousand years old - literally prehistoric in age.

Oh also they do weird things with sex as well sometimes. One of the oldest UK trees, the Fortingall yew appears to partially be turning from male to female on one side. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of it in the next few centuries of its life.

Seeeee, here's the thing: there have genuinely been times where I reblog, add context/clarification/a source, and then happily think "Go on your way, your time with me is over, be free and travel on"

My favorite detail, though, is his performance of Pure Imagination. On the surface, the song is charming and inviting, but if you look closely at him throughout the scene, you'll notice that Gene never blinks. He looks around, down at his feet, up at the trees; his eyes never fully close. He moves erratically, stuttering up and down the steps of the chocolate room. The lyrics are warm and friendly, but his face is blank. He bows to permit his visitors to run amok, but his posture is stiff. He helps Violet and Mike reach a couple of treats, but there is no joy in the gesture. The final post-chorus feels like a dirge, a threat, and a warning, all at once; Wonka sits in repose under a tree, but his eyes are glassy and dispassionate. "There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination; / living there / you'll be free / if you truly / wish / to be.......... "

What I've seen less - and what I want to remind people of - is this: if you've become fat, that's also natural and beautiful and fine.

When you're a fat person who has been thin in the past, that comes with its own brand of shaming. People take your history of thinness as proof that you don't have to be fat. You often fear the look of disappointed surprise in the eyes of someone you haven't met since you were thin. People try to determine "what happened". They don't see your fat body as just you, but as a sort of symptom that isn't part of you.

Promoting him like a real artist in the real world.....

The reason it was so important for narrative purposes, was that the plot concerns the visit of the Astronaut, in his completely opaque spacesuit, to a planet populated entirely by self-aware robots (originally from Earth) who have built their own society and are petitioning to be allowed to interact with Earth again as equals.

They have a democratic government and free choice of careers etc. as the orange robot serving as guide tells the Astronaut.

The Astronaut notices that there are two different types of robot on this world; the orange ones, who are in charge, gifted access to all information and facilities. and the blue robots, who are seen as more limited in function, have less access to information and resources, and are not allowed positions of power or as wide a choice of employment opportunities. Even transportation is segregated.

The Astronaut investigates further and discovers that the blue and orange robots are actually structurally identical, there is absolutely no difference between their potential or capabilities, and it is only because the orange robots are instructed by their Educator system to consider themselves superior, that the difference exists.

The Astronaut tells the robots they are not ready for re-alignment with Earth, until they come to terms with their own unfairness, and how Earth had had to deal with this issue themselves. When that time comes, the robots will be able to ally with Earth.

Then he leaves in his spaceship, and it's only in that one final panel that we see the Astronaut is black.

Not subtle, nor should it be, but for 1950 this was a breathtakingly powerful statement, perhaps the first of it's kind in the genre.